Safety focus on full-size pick-up trucks

Increasingly popular and controversial full-size American pick-up trucks could become subject to local testing by the independent safety authority, Australasian New Car Assessment Program (ANCAP).

The potential expansion of ANCAP’s testing program comes as the Ford F-150 is on the verge of entering the local market to compete against the RAM 1500 and the Chevrolet Silverado 1500.

Market leader Toyota is rolling out a comprehensive local test program of the Tundra ahead of an expected launch in 2025.

Big petrol-powered dual-cab 4x4 utes are sales superstars in the USA and becoming increasingly popular in Australia.

To the end of August 2023, 4436 examples of the RAM 1500 had been sold in Australia (an increase of 44.1 per cent on 2022) and the Silverado had found 1240 Aussie homes – a rise of 34.2 per cent.

Australian sales of the heavy-duty diesel Silverado HD and RAM 2500/3500 were also rising substantially in sales this year compared to 2022.

Along with a sales increase, these utes – which measure around six metres long and weigh in around 2.5 tonnes or more – have attracted an increasing amount of negative attention because of their size.

For instance, Nine newspapers have recently run several pieces about them, including a feature in the flagship Good Weekend magazine titled ‘Side windows at neck height: The madness of super-sized pick-ups’.

It’s understood ANCAP has noted the increasing sales and controversy surrounding these utes. It has received complaints from members of the public about potential pedestrian safety issues.

If it goes ahead, ANCAP testing is more likely to focus on the effectiveness of driver assistance systems and vulnerable road user protection rather than crash testing.

Results would likely be graded rather than star-rated, in the same way commercial vans are now reported as platinum, gold, silver or bronze.

There appear to be a number of reasons for ANCAP considering going the same way for full-size pick-ups: budget, facility capability and their potential impact on other road users being among them.

The investigation of full-size utes is happening at the same time as ANCAP considers testing light trucks – something that’s been on its agenda before – and even motorcycles/scooters.

All four American ute brands are subject to factory-approved right-hand drive conversion programs in Australia. The RAM, Chevrolet and Toyota are converted by the Walkinshaw Group and the Ford by newcomer RMA Australia.

They have to pass Australian Design Regulation (ADR) safety standards to be sold in Australia, but ANCAP testing is more comprehensive and exacting.

Traditionally, it awards a star rating out of five after crash testing multiple vehicles to assess adult and child occupant protection, judges vulnerable road user impact and tests active safety systems such as lane keeping.

ANCAP has recently confirmed a mid-cycle update of lane safety system testing because of concerns about poor tuning of some systems.

In the USA, full-size pick-ups are subject to mandatory safety testing requirements by the federal government’s NHTSA authority and are also crash-tested by other programs such as IIHS.

The local distributors of all four truck brands were contacted for their response to the prospect of ANCAP testing.

A RAM Trucks Australia statement said: “The safety of our owners is of upmost importance to us. We specify our trucks with the highest level of safety equipment available to us. We’re happy to work with ANCAP on the testing of our full-sized pickups.”

Ford Australia spokesman Ben Nightingale said: "We work collaboratively with a range of industry bodies including ANCAP on a range of topics, and we understand ANCAP's desire to expand its assessment program to a greater range of vehicle categories. The new to market Ford F-150 is supplied with a comprehensive suite of active and passive safety technologies, in line with other leading Ford vehicles."

GMSV was considering a response. If it does have something to say, we’ll add it to this article.

Toyota declined to comment.